Shader Editor: Switch to another material in this scene.
We need a convenient way to see all materials in the scene and select a material and edit it without having to first select an object that uses the material.
Currently, editing materials on objects that Iām using as collection instances is annoying. I have to make the original collection visible in viewport, select one of the original objects, and only then can I edit the material.
I just noticed this thing in the corner of the Shader Editor - Switch to another material in this mesh:
What if when you pin a material to the Shader Editor, this widget changes to "Switch to another material IN THIS SCENE"? That way you can quickly access all materials without having to find and select an object first.
4 Comments
I agree, the way Blender works with materials is very annoying, being able to create and edit a material ONLY after we create an object and assign to it makes no sense: we need a proper material library that is not dependant on which material is assigned to which object.
I don't think using the pin for this is a good idea, because it is quite different from what happens with pinning everywhere else in Blender and other softwares.
Plus, it still means having to search and select an object that wears that specific material to be able to pin it and then edit it while having other objects selected.
However, it is basically like having interaction modes in the shader editor, one object based and one scene based. And I think this would be the way to go, and it would also allow some more trickeries :
Object based :
Scene based :
In such cases I use simple Sphere and assign material for it from the list.
It works but it's sad we have to create stupid temporary objects to compensate a lack of feature